Let's say I have a friend with a world of 16 regions. and I also wish to purchase a world and link it to theirs to make two varraregions that are joined together, but separate.

Ie, like how you can join up a second sim in SL to an existing sim, but have two separate owners.

Is this possible under kitely's setup? or does it cause issues with the whole "world not in use, shut down" thing? ie, the second world sits empty for too long and it shuts down, and the only way to boot it up is to explicitly teleport there.

or would both worlds stay online as long as someone was in one of them?

Either way, I would love to buy a second world to add to a friend's world.

There are three ways worlds can be "connected." The strongest way is the SL continent way. This requires technology that "sews" sims together so that you can see and walk to land running on another simulator. That technology is available in OpenSimulator but I don't think it is available in Kitely for the reason you noted: it is not easily compatible with the shutdown strategy that saves on costs and on energy footprint.

A second connection method exists in SL and might be easier to reconcile with the Kitely shutdown strategy: Land on another simulator can appear on the world map as a nearby island. In that case, an island in shutdown mode would appear as offline, but a double-click on it would request TP to it (If that option was set in Preferences). As with other TP requests, a sim offline would have to start up before you could go there. You would be able to see that it was offline and so make a better informed decision as to whether you wanted to go there.

(A check of your friends list would also tell you whether your friend was online, so you might make a still better informed decision by asking in IM.)

A third connection method works in Kitely and elsewhere in OpenSimulator. It is a walkin-TP. If the sim is running, the transport is as fast as any teleport. If the sim has to start you would get the usual Kitely message. This article tells you how to pick up a walkin TP in working condition:http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/ ... k-for.html

Note: This script will only work if placed by someone who has authority (such as owner) over the land where it is placed.

Our system doesn't allow placing worlds adjacent to one another, regardless of who owns those worlds. That's one of the reason why we call worlds "worlds" instead of calling them islands on the Kitely grid. Changing this would require us to keep a lot more worlds active, which would significantly increase our expenses and therefore force us to change our pricing accordingly.

Both the second and third options Selby mentioned work in Kitely. You can click on a location on the world map to teleport into that world and you can teleport to another world via a landmark or an IM invite. You can also be teleported to a world via a script. Regardless of which method you use if you try to teleport to a world that is currently offline you get notified that the world is now starting up and that you will be automatically teleported to it once it is ready (which can take between a few seconds and a few minutes depending on the world's complexity and how well it has been optimized by its owner).

@bitcoin London : I have done this via a 'tunnel' that on the lands edge had hills etc, landscaping, and a tunnel to go to the 'next town' the tunnel having a TP script in it as Shelby mentions. It might not be as simultaneous, especially if the land next door has a lot of scripts etc to start up but it definitely works and can help with the feeling of immersion. (I was doing it as part of a RP town thing)

I love to sail so have to ask: If I am sitting in my sailboat and therefore attached to it and went through a tp large enough for us both it would go with me?
If so that is way cool and imho just as good as "the take your chances you crash and deal with your world jerking around" option of connected sims. If I understood the teleport code correctly you can set it to leave you in your sim until the world comes online instead of the transfer station... If it was set far enough from the border of your land you wouldn't even have to stop once you got the timing right .
I wonder though what would happen if you had a passenger...

That all depends on how well the script was written. It could work if it teleports everyone sitting on the boat to the new world and then sits them down when they both arrive to the world they teleported to. The worlds would need to belong to the person owning the script so that the script will have permission to teleport the avatars. See: https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-ne ... functions/